Although mathematical skills are important to economic success in this society, U.S. students routinely perform below international standards of math achievement. Given such findings, there is a pressing need to understand factors that contribute to individual and group weakness in mathematics before such difficulties become entrenched. By studying preschool children with a longitudinal approach, the current study aimed to improve understanding of math development by investigating the unfolding relationship between math interest and achievement. Based on research with older children, it was expected that math interest and skill would be both concurrently related and predictive of one another over time. Additionally, research from the self-efficacy literature suggests that a child's conception of his or her math ability would be related to both the child's math interest and actual skill. Using the TEMA-2 as an assessment of skill and a multimodal approach to measuring interest, this study explored the measurement of math interest in young children. Gender and ethnic differences were found in select teacher measurements of interest, though none were found on observed or child-reported interest. Concurrent relationships were found between the different measures of interest and math ability. Even when controlling for initial skill or interest, skill was predictive of later observational ratings of math interest, and both observational and teacher measurements of interest were predictive of later skill. Because the assessment of self-efficacy demonstrated poor psychometric properties, further analyses were not conducted.

This study explored, from a phenomenological perspective, the experiences people in therapy had with autobiographical writing, including the descriptions of their experiences and what occurred during and after writing, and their evaluations of this form of writing. It describes some ways in which this form of writing can help facilitate therapeutic change. Three women and one man in therapy engaged in a period of autobiographical writing focused on a problematic event in their family-of-origin that served as a quasi presenting problem for this study. Data was gathered through an in-depth interview with participants at the end of the period of writing, the journals that participants were requested to keep, and the observations of their therapists gathered by in-depth interviews. It was found that writing autobiography facilitated the expression of feelings, a shift in a personal paradigm, a beginning sense of self as agent, and changes in relationships. It was determined that this process of writing, regardless of the content of that writing, had the potential to provide therapeutic benefit to the writer. Participants found the writing partially responsible for their experiences and helpful in bringing forward the realization that there was a problem that needed to be addressed. It also made issues tangible and facilitated their ability to work with them, process and let go of them. Participants advocated the use of autobiographical writing as a tool in therapy because it brought up issues being worked on in a different format, it revealed things about the writer, even to that person, it loosened up things attached to the story, it made one's experiences real to oneself, and it was useful in reviewing one's life and honoring one's witnessing of one's life. Therapists found some benefits in this tool. For example, it facilitated deep focused work, accelerated the writer's process, fostered self-reflective work outside of therapy, and brought a particular experience to the surface and allowed it to be worked on.

Thesis (PH.D.) -- Syracuse University, 2007. / "Publication number AAT 3277242"

The United States continues to present the highest rate of illicit drug use among adolescents and young adults in the industrialized world. Despite increasing attention to the problem, the lack of a coherent theoretical framework from which to conceptualize adolescent substance abuse has limited our therapeutic response. The main difficulty in developing a systematic model of inquiry and practice relates to the complexity and multidimensionality of the addictive process. This study investigated the issue of teenage substance abuse and addiction using an integration of cognitive-developmental and narrative theory. The dissertation was guided by the assumption that a clinically relevant understanding of the problem requires a holistic approach that explores the meanings of a person's lived experience rather than a reductionistic approach that identifies the complex interaction of external variables and precipitants. With this primacy on "local" knowledge, emphasis was placed on exploring the epistemology of addiction and how these meanings were conveyed through stories. Consequently, the fundamental task of the study was to identify the common themes in the stories of teenage drug users and integrate them into a local theory of adolescent addiction that would facilitate personally relevant treatment interventions. The sample population consisted of twelve consenting young people with histories of substance abuse who were selected from a public high school and a residential rehabilitation facility. Each subject participated in a structured interview based on Allen Ivey's Developmental Therapy. This cognitive-developmental approach provided a useful framework from which to assess and organize the complex cognitive dimensions that comprised the adolescents' experience. Narrative methods, on the other hand, were used to elicit common themes in their stories. Based upon this combination of approaches, this dissertation presented a theory of adolescent substance abuse that was "grounded" in the interview data. The theory represented a sequence of phases in the addictive process that emerged from the sample group's common experiences. The treatment implications of this integrated approach to addiction theory was then discussed with an emphasis on developing relevant interventions based on treatment matching according to the person's cognitive-developmental profile and unique story.

Each year in Massachusetts there are approximately 21,000 juveniles arraigned in court on criminal charges. If trends continue as they have over the past ten years, juvenile arrests for violent crimes will double by the year 2010 (DYS, 1996). This indicates a need to examine closely the current methods of rehabilitation and socialization of incarcerated youths. This study examines the experiences of eight ajudicated, incarcerated male adolescents to discover the meaning these offenders are making of their daily experience in a Massachusetts secure treatment unit and indicates whether this experience is congruent with the expressed goals and purpose of the Department of Youth Service. This study also expanded on the work of Kegan (1982) by investigating the applicability of his model of developmental stages in meaning making systems to incarcerated male adolescents. The qualitative approach of semi-structed interviewing was used in order to avoid imposing the ideas and standards of the psychological establishment as well as that of the experimenter's culture on the experience of the adolescents. Using Kegan's model, African-American, Caucasian and Hispanic subjects were found to be all functioning at the same developmental level. Qualitative analysis of the data revealed "trust" as a significant issue and identified the lack of the ability on the part of the subjects to take another's perspective as a major deterrent to the messages inherent in the program's stated goals and also to the actual methodology used by the staff. Case history material from the Department of Youth Services and Kegan's semi-structured, subject-object interviews provided a multi-dimensional understanding of the complex picture of the adolescents' experiences. Conclusions are drawn from the data leading to suggestions for better communication between incarcerated adolescents and those professionals in whose care they have been entrusted.

Return to education is as an intervention in the life course that produces changes in sense of self and relationship. This study investigated the subjective experience of adult women who returned to school and completed an undergraduate degree after age 25. Thirteen women who returned to school and earned a Bachelor's degree were interviewed at least two years after graduation; their retrospective evaluations and understandings of changes initiated by return to school constituted a perspective missing from the literature. Analyses of interview themes were based on the principles of grounded theory. Relationships between codes representing participants' experiences were investigated to understand motivation before returning, experiences while in school, including stress, coping, and support, and evaluations at interview of change and stability in perceptions of senses of self and relationships with others. There was considerable support for the idea that education fostered developmental progression, rather than developmental stagnation or regression, in terms of increased capacity for independence and individuation, and in terms of increased capacity for relatedness and connection. Further, the perspective of retrospect and a qualitative approach added considerable richness and depth to understandings of experiences of return to education.